Why I'm sticking with my black and white telly (and no I didn't claim it on expenses)

Shock horror! MP Chris Mullin hasn't got a plasma TV!

What did you do in the great Westminster expenses scandal, my 21st- century grandchildren may one day inquire. And I shall be forced to reply, shamefaced, that I was exposed in the national Press ... for being the owner of a black-and-white TV set.

Not that I charged it to expenses, you understand. Oh, dear me, no. I have owned it for more than 30 years, long before I entered Parliament, so it would have been quite wrong to ask the taxpayer to fork out for it. But, yes, I admit I did claim £45 on expenses for its black- and-white TV licence.

Still sceptical? The licensing authority certainly was, sending me a letter pointing out that since less than half of one per cent of British citizens still own a black-and-white television, they suspected I might be pulling a fast one. I either had to own up promptly that I actually owned a colour set, or risk a hefty penalty.

Chris Mullin MP is sticking to his black and white TV while he discusses the expenses scandal

All I can say is that the TV licence inspectors are welcome to come calling at my London flat any time they like. My old set is there for anyone who wants proof.

It may not be widescreen or high-definition or have Dolby surround sound and the like, but it still works fine enough for me. I don't watch much TV anyway, so I've simply never seen the point of buying a new one.

Needless to say, that revelation hasn't stopped a certain amount of leg-pulling from my more high-tech colleagues who - as we have seen - live in the world of plasma TVs and Bang & Olufsen home cinemas.

My children, too, have subjected me to no small degree of ridicule in the course of their regular campaigns for a more up-to-date model.

But in case anyone thinks I am a complete dinosaur, I had better add that the Chateau Mullin property in Sunderland, which is my main family home, is indeed in possession of a colour TV set, paid for (I hasten to add) from my own pocket.

My justification for sticking with black-and-white in London has nothing to do with parsimony or even an aversion to the latest technology. It has to do with waste. I simply can't bear the thought of throwing away things that work - a sentiment that only hardens when one reflects on where all this waste is going.

Most of our discarded gadgets end up in holes in the ground - and we are rapidly running out of holes. For all the talk about improved recycling schemes, it remains a fact that most of the waste we generate is destined to pollute the planet indefinitely.

The fact that several billion people in China and India aspire to Western levels of consumption only compounds the crisis. Unless we change our ways, and fast, catastrophe beckons.

I read the other day a shocking article which asserted that virtually every piece of plastic ever manufactured (during the 100 years since it was invented) is still in existence, much of it washing around the bottom of the world's oceans where it is killing the marine life.

To my mind, our modern throwaway culture - in which nothing is repaired any more, simply replaced by a newer model - is not just highly wasteful, it is morally abhorrent.

How sickening that perfectly good washing machines, fridges and computers which develop even the most minor faults are tossed out into the back lane for the binmen to collect without even a second thought as to where they will end up.

To grasp the scale of the problem, one has only to spend a few minutes at your local council dump. It is a truly shocking experience.

Yet even if we ignore the environmental impact, I simply don't understand today's obsession with acquiring the latest technology, particularly when it comes to the mobile devices which, far from making lives simpler and easier, seem only to enslave us further.

After the Labour landslide of 1997, it was almost mandatory for every ambitious New Labour MP to acquire a pager to keep him in touch with Alastair Campbell's slogans of the hour.

I, by contrast, saw a certain advantage in not being constantly in touch with headquarters. I am not one of those politicians who need to be constantly 'on message'.

On occasions this has proved disastrous. In May 2003, the Prime Minister rang to offer me the job of International Development Minister in the Commons (the new Secretary of State, Val Amos, being in the Lords).

If plastic isn't collected and recycled, much of it ends up clogging up the ocean

Not being in possession of a pager, it was some time before the message reached me. In the meantime, the Chief Whip had found out and rushed over to Downing Street to put the boot in on the grounds that I had voted against the Iraq war.

By the time I returned the PM's call, the damage had been done. The job went instead to Hilary Benn.

It gets worse. Four months later, Valerie Amos was made leader of the House of Lords following the sudden death of Lord Williams, and Hilary Benn was elevated to Secretary of State. So, it could be argued, that the lack of a pager cost me a seat in the Cabinet.

I readily concede, then, that there are jobs - and perhaps politics is one - where an ability to communicate instantly is an advantage.

But think of the downsides, too. The constant flow of texts, emails and mobile telephone calls is destroying our capacity to concentrate on anything for longer than a soundbite.

Some of my colleagues find it increasingly difficult to hold a conversation without constantly glancing down at incoming messages on vibrating technology installed uncomfortably close to their nether regions. Even in parliamentary committees it is not uncommon to see distracted colleagues playing with their Blackberry instead of concentrating on the business of the hour. Is this progress? I am not so sure.

I don't want to sound like an old fogey. I can readily see that much modern technology confers advantages as well as disadvantages.

Some 40 years ago, when I was bumming around Asia as a young man, an exchange of airmail letters with my worried parents took weeks to arrive.

Today, by contrast, my wife and I are in almost daily touch with our 19-year-old daughter, who is on a gap year in Vietnam. I know which I prefer.

At heart, however, I have to admit to being mildly technophobic, and maybe this is why I have never reached the Olympian heights in politics.

There never was a golden age, but I suspect many of us might have been happier to have lived at a time when the bicycle was king. When most places worth visiting were reachable by railways. Where we travelled slowly, valued friendship and indulged in simple pleasures.

Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, was once like that. When I first visited 30 years ago it was a city of a million bicycles.

There were no traffic lights. The bicycles flowed in a great, lazy river along tree-lined avenues. People were poor, but they had time to talk and laugh. It was an age of innocence.

Today, Hanoi has suffered the onslaught of market forces on a scale that not even Mrs Thatcher would recognise. The million bicycles have given way to a million polluting motorcycles, which are gradually being replaced by motor vehicles. Soon nothing will move at all - and it will be called progress!

Those congested streets may seem a world away from the old black-and-white television sitting in my London flat, but the point is the same. When it comes to technological 'improvements', be careful what you wish for.

•Chris Mullin's diaries, A View From The Foothills, is published by Profile Books at £20.